Off to Intag

With the boys getting a week off from school for Semana Santa and Jamie and I ready to explore the surrounding areas, we headed west to Intag.

It is a remote area on the other side of one of the two big mountains we’re in between. As the condor flies it is not far, but it takes three harrowing hours to get to by bus. The bus starts in Otavalo and if you’re there early enough and have enough livestock crammed into old cardboard boxes, they will let you on the first bus. If you don’t qualify by those standards, then you need to wait half a day for the next bus; either way you make it.

We did not qualify to make the early bus so we waited for five hours in Otavalo, which is not a bad place to be stuck. Once we made it to Intag, we we’re in a new land of steep, green canyons, coffee beans shaded by banana trees and nothing around for miles including a good meal. Here’s some photos of the “aventura”!

Jamie has been doing a great job with her Spanish and I need to practice more!

After going to Intag, we now know coffee beans are inside a red berry which is edible and very tasty. The boys loved picking them right of the plant and eating the berry. The big pea pod things are guava (not guayaba). The pea inside is covered in a furry, juicy, mildy sweet covering that you eat. I had a few, but it was like eating a cotton ball soaked in suger water. Here’s a picture and full description of the guava confusion: http://cookingdiva.net/blog/comments/cooking_with_guava_guaba_inga_punctata_wild/